3 Reasons God Allowed Me to be Benched
By: Missionary Team
I grew up in a family of stud athletes. My big sister was an all-state volleyball player in high school and the female athlete of the year in her D3 college conference her senior year. Two of my older brothers were high school first-team all-state-level baseball players in Iowa. Growing up watching them play I always assumed I would perform at their level.
By the grace of God, my arrogance was shattered. In 7th and 8th grade I rode the bench on my baseball and basketball teams. It was humiliating for me. My huge assumption of dominating sports was squashed. The temptations toward anger, discouragement, and making excuses came on strong. My Freshman and Sophomore years were more of the same for basketball. Baseball, however, was a different story. I was one of the best players on my baseball team putting up terrific numbers.
In my Junior year, I quit basketball and solely focused on baseball. That year’s baseball season was the most difficult season I have ever had. I rode the bench practically all year and watched my team lose game after game. I am not sure if I deserved to play, but I would have sure loved to have been given more of a shot.
Senior year I finally got my shot. I played every game and put up solid numbers, not like my big brothers’ but still pretty good. At the end of the season, I wrote a thank-you to my coach thanking him for benching me my Junior year because during that season God revealed to me three reasons why He was letting it happen.
1. God Wanted to Teach Me Humility
It was my arrogance that caused me to assume I would be as good as my older siblings. I needed humility to be put in my place, and the only way to learn humility is through humiliation. It was humiliating for me to be the worst athlete out of my athletic older siblings. But the humiliation filled me with a greater awareness of who I was.
2. God Wanted to Give Me Gratitude
From humility springs gratitude. In my assumption, I thought I deserved to start on my team. That being taken away from me helped me realize the basic truth that I do not deserve anything. All things are loving gifts from the Father. My last season I was more grateful for my playing time and that made me value it way more than many of my teammates.
3. God Wanted to Teach Me Perseverance
I am grateful that God gave me the strength to persevere through my setbacks. Even though I would come back from another game riding the bench filled with anger and shedding tears, I had the strength to go to practice the next day and give it my all. Living for Our Lord is like that. No matter how much rejection or failure we face, we just keep moving because ultimately the success of our journey is by God’s power not our own.
